


A Virtue

by QuesadillaWizard



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 05:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuesadillaWizard/pseuds/QuesadillaWizard
Summary: Envy, Lust, and Gluttony go on a road trip.





	A Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place before Episode 1 of the FMA 03 anime.

“Sheep!” Gluttony announced as the carriage rounded a bend in the road. Farmland sprawled on either side of the carriage, painting a perfectly scenic but frustratingly dull portrait of this god-forsaken mission they had been sent on.

Lust only moved her eyes, violet hues boredly taking in the passing fence posts and grazing white creatures. This had been the sixth sheep pasture they had passed. She had stopped pretending to be charmed days ago. If they weren’t delivering a literal wagonload of gold for rogue alchemists to squabble over, Lust would have only had to stare at one sheep pasture.

“Can we stop, Lust?” Gluttony pressed his nose to the carriage’s window. “Oh, please! Can I eat just one?”

“No, Gluttony.” Lust’s voice carried no hint of her frustration. “There will be plenty for you to eat in town. We must move quickly.”

Gluttony peeled his face away from the window long enough to give her a crestfallen look. By all means, he was older than she was and if it came down to it, he could wrench the door open and chase down the biggest juiciest ram if he really wanted to, but he also loved his new sister dearly and he could tell that she wasn’t happy with their situation.

Their situation being Envy, who was seated at the head of the carriage in the guise of an old man squinting against the sun. He had insisted on being as convincing as possible and that meant traveling as slowly as possible just like an old farmer who had nothing to hide would. If Lust didn’t know better, she would have thought the horses that were pulling them had been transmuted from slugs.

Lust sighed. They hadn’t seen anyone, human or otherwise, in two days on this road. She carefully unlatched the carriage door and leaned her head out just enough that the hair caught in her curls.

“Envy, this isn’t necessary. We should have arrived by now.”

Envy’s only reply was a thoughtful hum in his best old man voice which was, in fact, an incredibly good old man voice. 

Lust felt the corners of her eyes tighten. “You’re doing this to spite me.”

“Hardly,” murmured Envy, clearly in love with his own evil. “You need to be patient, Lust. Would you rather rush and risk looking suspicious?”

“Cows!” Gluttony cried as large black and white animals began to dot the landscape. It was a delicious, welcome change. “Lust, can I?”

Lust ignored him. “Who do we need to fear by seeming suspicious? As though we could be stopped? If we travel any slower, any man walking beside the cart could pick and choose our cargo as he pleases.”

Envy only hummed again.

“Is that what you’re doing?” Lust swiftly put the pieces together and drew up her shoulders. “Crawling along waiting for some bandits to play with?” 

Envy confirmed her suspicions by letting out a low chuckle.

Lust withdrew her head back into the carriage and slammed the door. “Unbelievable.”

There was a silence. A silence that Lust had expected to be filled with the joyful contemplation of what bandits might taste like and how many there might be. She glanced to the side and found an emptiness. Lust slid across the seat to look through the window that had Gluttony’s fingerprints all over it. The cows in the field hadn’t started stampeding.

“Envy,” Lust leaned out of the carriage again. “Where is Gluttony?”

Envy stopped pretending to smoke his pipe long enough to finally look back at her. “What?”

“Gluttony is not inside the carriage.” Lust’s face was stony. This was not a farce to get his attention and keep arguing.

Envy pulled the horses to a stop and stood. The rolling landscape around them was dotted with shrubs, low trees, cattle, and ponds but there wasn’t any sign of their middlest brother anywhere. 

“This isn’t the time for games, Gluttony…” Envy hissed under his breath as his disguise crackled and faded away.

“Except that the past three days have been a game for you,” Lust reminded him grimly. 

“He probably went back for a sheep.” Envy ignored her bait and rested a hand on his hip. While Envy wasn’t exactly worried, he was a little puzzled. When Gluttony wandered off for a snack he usually at least had the decency to leave chaos in his wake so that they would know where he had gone. “He loves sheep.”

“He loves _everything!_ ” 

___

It was true, he did. Gluttony could appreciate each and every flavor that the world had to offer him. But there was something else on his mind as of perhaps an hour ago. While he did intend on finding himself something to munch on, he was going to bring something that would make both Envy and Lust happy. He hunched low in the bushes, far stealthier than any creature his shape had any right to and sniffed the ground. Gluttony’s nose led him on for several more yards before the underbrush gave way to a plot of land. It was surrounded by a fence and home to many tempting animals animals, but the farmhouse that stood in the middle of it all was what Gluttony was hoping to see.

With a wide grin, Gluttony stood and trundled onto the farm, pausing only to chomp through the wooden fence. Ignoring the panicked goats and chickens, Gluttony slipped up to the window and peeked over the sill. The house was dark but he could see signs of life. Clothes were draped here and there. Plates were stacked in the sink. There was some half-finished leather project on the table. He could smell stew in the air.

“Perfect!” Gluttony sat himself down beneath the window, thatched his fingers together, and waited.

___

Lust swore under her breath as she rode one of the carriage horses back down the road. She rode bareback and sidesaddle like a damsel on the cover of some trashy romance novel. Sure she could have whipped down the road like a windy demon, but she was frustrated and wanted to indulge herself a little. If Envy wanted her to be patient, she’d be patient while he sat on his ass back at the carriage with hundreds of pounds of gold.

The thrill of spite and rebellion, however small, didn’t last long because horses could not run forever and Lust didn’t really fancy the smell of sweaty horse. She road at a trot with her eyes glued to the treeline. No carnage. No cloud of terrified birds raising out of the bushes. 

_Could it be that Gluttony moved ahead of us?_

Surely Envy would have seen him go by, even as they bickered. He was obnoxious but he wasn’t unobservant. It really was as though Gluttony had simply vanished. Lust felt the smallest pang of...something...as her mind ventured to imagine a world where she didn’t have her bottomless older brother to vent her frustrations to. She didn’t like it.

When the sheep pasture came back into view and there were no signs of distress in any of the placid grazing creatures, Lust turned the horse back around and made her way back to the carriage. The sun was setting by the time she reached it.

“No sign of him?” Envy was leaning against the cargo cart when Lust arrived. She shook her head and Envy heaved a sigh. He stood and reached for the horse’s reins to begin hitching it back to the carriage. “Let’s just go. He’ll come to town when he’s done doing whatever it is he’s doing. No more games.”

“No,” said Lust to both her and Envy’s surprise. Envy stared at her. She had wanted nothing but to hurry onward and sew chaos in town until now. “Something’s strange.”

“Are you worried about him?” A sly smile slithered across Envy’s face as he tilted his head up at his little sister. “Have a little faith in Gluttony.” 

“What good is faith if one of you-know-whose things is destroyed by some nosey alchemist? We’ve no red stones out here. Who’s going to fill in for Gluttony? You?”

Envy had not considered that and bit back the needle thin bolt of fear that sliced through him when he imagined showing back up at their base of operations with nothing but empty hands and a shrug once inquired about Gluttony’s whereabouts. No. They couldn’t have that. Also Envy didn’t like his boots so he couldn’t be the new Gluttony.

He looked up again and opened his mouth to concede and let her lead the way when his pride was saved by a sore sight coming up over the ridge. 

“I won’t have to be. Gluttony! We were wondering where you had gone off to.”

Lust turned and sure enough, there was Gluttony’s round body trotting toward them at a decent speed with a man under each arm. One was missing his head.

“Envy! I found a bandit for you!” Gluttony announced when he reached them. He threw the man who still had his head at Envy’s feet. 

“Please! Don’t kill me!” The man pushed himself to his hands and knees and stared up at the three of them in rabbit-eyed horror. It was impossible for him to ignore the horrible yet delicate crunching coming from behind him. 

“So thoughtful.” Lust smiled warmly down at Gluttony as she got off the horse. She made sure to side step the other man as he attempted to scramble away and Envy gave chase. 

“Ah, Lust!” Gluttony turned to her and licked the offal from his lips. He’d only taken a little bite out of the man’s stomach since arriving. “I will make him last the entire way! Sorry to keep you waiting! I was just so hungry!” 

At that, Lust could only make a small, amused hum and that seemed to be good enough for him. Gluttony broke into a sanguine grin and clambered back into the carriage with his prize thrown over one shoulder. 

Envy soon reappeared and wiped his brow. “Thanks, Gluttony. Just what I needed. Though I would have rather done it as the old man just for the sake of surprise.”

With the horses hitched up again and the wheels moving, they finally made good times. The road disappeared behind them, perhaps a good deal more haunted than it had been previously. On the horizon the low jumbled shape of a town appeared and Envy called up his disguise.

“Look at that. Just a little patience was all it took,” he said to himself.

The carriage rocked slightly as Gluttony plastered himself to one of the windows. 

“Lust, look! Sheep!”


End file.
